


Absolution

by nerdqueenenterprise



Series: Kisses - Chril Edition [4]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Mentions of Death, don't worry nobody actually dies!!, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-12-11 14:48:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11716587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdqueenenterprise/pseuds/nerdqueenenterprise
Summary: For the Kiss Meme - Prompt 13: "When one stops the kiss to whisper “I’m sorry, are you sure you-” and they answer by kissing them more"Phil is terrified that Chris has been hurt in Nero's attack. What actually happens is so much worse.





	Absolution

The massive beam of laser or whatever it is that’s currently trying to split the bay is a bit hard to miss, and it serves fantastically to make Phil that much more anxious. News from Vulcan have been jumbled, some probably grossly exaggerated, others very much unbelievable; it’s complete chaos. As far as Phil knows, most of the ships dispatched there haven’t checked in with Starfleet and cannot be reached, some reports even going so far as to say that every ship but the  _ Enterprise _ have been destroyed, along with the entire planet Vulcan. It’s ridiculous, of course.

Phil makes a conscious effort to unclench his stomach again, breathe deeply, sit up more straight, doing his best to ignore the ginormous drill just outside the windows. He knows it belongs to a gigantic unknown spaceship that’s currently hanging above Earth, he knows they’re not responding to any communication attempts, and god, the  _ Enterprise _ isn’t checking in, either, not really, hasn’t reported for hours, and that report had been barely intelligible. And Chris is up there somewhere.

Chris is up there somewhere and the last interaction they had was the fight a week ago, before Phil had left for the conference in London. It’s very much a cliché, that they’re now apart and Phil fears he’ll never see his lover again and that the fight will be the last interaction they had and that Chris might die … might already be dead with the last words between them having been ugly, and completely stupid to fight over.

Phil has seen enough bodies in his lifetime that he can now easily imagine Chris like that, in a thousand different ways, and his brain is happily supplying every one of them.

 

There are people to be healed, and surgeries to be done, Starfleet Medical suddenly bursting full with patients some commercial or personal vessels were able to rescue, rescue from where?, and Phil lets himself be drawn into the familiar motions of doctoring, going through the motions but not really there.

He’s just done delivering a Vulcan baby when a cadet bursts through the door, startling the new parents.

    “Admiral Boyce!” she gasps out.

    “Where’s the fire?” he asks, kind of mechanical. There’s recognition on the cadet’s face, unsurprisingly, given how he’s rather well known around campus for being, how Chris, smiling fondly, had put it, a hardass. Chris. She stands at attention, probably suddenly very aware of her surroundings and who’s in front of her.

    “Um. Admiral. I apologize for the interruption, but there is a matter that urgently requires your attention.”

The attending nurse gives Phil a gentle push towards the door. “Go on, I’ve got this here unter control.”

 

    “It’s Admiral Pike, sir,” the cadet explains, taking off down the corridor at a pace that is just below running. Phil’s heart wants to miss a beat but some fierce optimism worms its way through.

    “Is he alright?”

She shoots him a look. “I … I don’t know actually, I’m just supposed to fetch you.”

    “You don’t  _ know _ ?!” he spits out and she flinches visibly.

    “I’m sorry, sir, I just - I’m just supposed to get you.”

Phil’s stomach is somewhere around his knees and his palms are sweaty. He follows the cadet halfway across campus before he realizes they’re headed for the Fleet Admiral’s office. Lynda is a good friend of his and Chris’, but they rarely see each other in a professional setting. It terrifies him to be brought here, because there aren’t many reasons for why she’d want to see him now.

The cadet practically flies through the door to Lynda’s secretary, nodding hastily at the woman.

    “Admiral Boyce,” she announces.

    “Thank you, cadet. Dismissed.” 

The girl nods again and is gone, and Lynda’s secretary gives him an odd look. “Go on already. She’s waiting to see you.”

 

Lynda ends a transmission just as Phil enters. He’s scared shitless by now, because there’s no reason for why he should be here, unless … unless … 

The image of Chris’ lifeless body flickers back into view in his inner eye and his stomach coils into even tighter knots.

Lynda gives him a gentle smile.

    “Have a seat.”

    “I think I’d rather stand,” he manages.

She purses her lips. “Have a seat.”

His knees give out the second the backs of his legs touch the chair.

    “Just say it already.” Chris, Chris, Chris, God. His smile when he’d talk about the  _ Enterprise _ , how sensitive his feet were, how soft his hair, his tic where he’d fold his hands every time before speaking at a conference, the fondness in his eyes when he talked about Kirk, him leaning back in a chair, high on weed and a good time, slightly drunk, plucking out notes on his guitar, pillow crease marks on his cheeks in the morning, his inability to eat spaghetti like a civilized person, gone now, all of it, gone, no more kisses, no more laying his head in Chris’ lap, no more relishing in saying his full name against his skin, no more of his sparkling laughter and wide grins, or the way he’d touch Phil when they were intimate, no more -

    “He made it through surgery surprisingly well, and he should be waking up soon.”

Phil’s head snaps up. “S-surgery?! What?!”

Lynda is smiling. “God, you doctor types always assume the worst, don’t you? He was… in a bad shape, as far as I’ve been informed, but Dr McCoy personally operated on him, and the last I heard was that everything had gone well.”

Phil can breathe again. Chris is alive.

    “Can I see him?” He doesn’t dare hope because who knows where the  _ Enterprise _ might be, what the orders might be, what he might be assigned to.

Lynda sighs. “Unfortunately, the  _ Enterprise _ has been blown quite a ways away from - oh, dear, you don’t even know what happened. Suffice to say, Chris has been through hell and back, literally, and he barely made it out alive, Vulcan is destroyed and we almost suffered the same fate if it hadn’t been for, well, I suppose  _ Captain  _ Kirk’s and his crew’s actions. Don’t ask - you’ll be filled in. We’re sending a rescue ship with new warp core particles and supplies out there, the fastest one we can get at the moment, and you’re on that ship. You depart from hangar twelve in -” She checks the chronometer. “- twenty-five minutes. Better hurry.”

Phil is still frozen in position.

    “Philip!”

    “Yes. Yes, hangar twelve, got it. Thank you!”

 

The flight is torture. They’ll need the better part of a week to get to where the  _ Enterprise _ has been blasted to, and Phil doesn’t know how he’ll survive the terrified anticipation. He spends half of the first shift (which he isn’t even assigned to, damnit) on the bridge, terrorizing the crew. 

Leonard calls him just as he’s about to synthesize some dinner that he’ll barely be able to eat, and the man looks like a shadow of his former self. McCoy had immediately endeared himself to Phil by all but shredding a particularly incompetent doctor at Medical during McCoy’s first four hours working there, then continuing to just about verbally flaying Phil when he’d made a bit of a, let’s say misguided remark. McCoy had proven himself to be an incredibly gifted and competent physician with a bedside manner to die for while also not mincing matters with colleagues at all, and they’d soon become Leo and Phil, meeting up for drinks every now and then to discuss their idiotic (aspiring) captains.

    “How is he?” Phil breathes. Leo is one of the very few people who know of his and Chris’ relationship and Phil in turn is privy to Leo’s feelings about Jim.

Leo sighs and drags a hand through his already mussed hair. “Alive, to say the least.”

Phil’s heart clenches again. “Please, just - tell me, tell me everything. Please.”

    “This madman, Nero - he’s from the future, or at least he claimed to be, he destroyed every ship dispatched except for the  _ Enterprise _ , he requested meeting Chris in person, he went, never came back. Turns out they tried to force him to give up the codes to Earth. Chris fought it, fought everything they inflicted upon him, and in the end they forced a Centaurian Slug into him, and he cracked. Jim and Spock got him back and he - he must’ve had that thing inside of him for at least six hours, but he was still lucid, amazingly. I operated - highest ranking medical officer left after the initial losses - and … God, Phil, what a carnage. That thing just about wrecked his spinal tissue.”

    “Is he awake?”

The look Leo gives him is part pity and part bone-deep exhaustion. “I did almost five hours on him, tried to save as much as I could, but … Phil, I have no idea what state he’ll be in if - when he wakes up.” If. That - that hurts, hurts more than Phil’d imagined. “I doubt he’ll ever walk again. I hope he’ll be sane.”

Something off-screen catches Leo’s attention and he frowns.

    “Actually.” The picture shakes for a moment, and then Leo is standing up, the perspective following him. He must’ve taken the camera with him. “He’s waking up,” the  _ Enterprise _ ’s CMO explains. “Thought you might like to be there for that.”

 

Chris looks small and fragile in the medbay bed and Phil would almost swear it’s a different man altogether. He’s hooked up to a multitude of devices, most of which Phil can’t get a good look at.

He’s pale too, looks drawn and just thoroughly unhealthy. His eyelids are fluttering as he seems to be trying to drag himself from unconsciousness.

    “Vitals are looking … good, considering the state he’s in,” Leonard notes in a low voice.

Phil swallows against the tightness in his throat.

Chris manages to open his eyes a slit wide before they fall shut again.

    “Name, rank,” Leo prompts him with the standard protocol.

    “M’Coy…” he rasps, and then there’s the ghost of a smile on his face. “CMO, pr’ly.”

Phil loves him. Oh dear god, he loves him so much. Leo’s frown morphs into a smile.

    “ _ Your _ name and rank,” he says with a note of fond exasperation.

A gentle shiver wracks Chris’ body and he frowns. The pulse meter gives a gentle  _ beep _ . He’s overexerting himself, probably working himself up too much.

    “Nero -!”

    “Yes, we know, don’t worry -”

Chris’ eyes flash open, stormy and dark. He fights to push himself up on his elbows. “Leonard, Nero will destroy Earth, we must -!”

Leo is by his side in a flash, obscuring Phil’s view of his lover. The bioscreen is giving off all kinds of warning signals - extreme brain activity, extremely heightened blood pressure, pulse, respiration… Phil knows what all of the little sounds mean, could read them in his sleep. Chris is in a bad place. But he’s alive, and he’s fighting.

Leo has managed to get him to lie down again, but Chris is still staring at him, fighting the exhaustion with everything he’s got.

    “Do me a favor and get some sleep, Leo,” Phil says. “I’ll stay with him.”

Chris registers his voice and slowly turns his head towards Phil. Leo nods and leaves, hopefully getting some shuteye, and Phil looks at his lover.

    “Damnit, Chris. How are you?”

Chris’ eyes flutter shut for long seconds before he manages to open them again.

    “‘M so tired.”

    “Yeah. Yeah, you’ve been through alot, baby. You need to rest.”

Chris blinks slowly.

    “I’ll stay with you,” Phil says, wondering how long the battery of the device will last. “I’ll stay with you, baby, and I’m already on my way to you. It’s going to be alright.”

    “You’re coming here?”

    “Yeah. I’m on a ship, beautiful, I’ll be there in a few days. It’s going to be alright.”

    “I know you love me.” His eyes are falling shut again, and Phil’s heart hurts with how much he loves Chris.

    “I do, baby, I do. I’m so happy you’re alive, I thought - I don’t know, I thought I’d never see you again.” Phil wipes away a stray tear. He doesn’t cry, usually, but just to think what Chris had been through. And he can’t even hug him, touch him, reassure him.

 

He ends up reading to Chris while he sleeps, some random text he finds in the ship’s computer banks about engines, and eventually he falls asleep in his chair, waking up only when the video call beeps the disconnection, probably because the battery of the other device has given out.

He reads a lot to Chris in the following days, and he can’t wait to finally get to see him in person again, touch him, make sure he’s really as okay as possible.

 

They dock with the Enterprise, and Phil is not above using his rank to bypass whatever meeting or troubleshooting is supposed to happen. He gets a glimpse of Kirk, looking worse than he’s ever seen the kid, Commander Spock at his side. It’s not difficult to find the medbay, and McCoy spots him immediately.

    “How is he?”

The other doctor gives Phil an odd look. “You saw him just before you finalised docking. You tell me.”

    “Yeah, I guess. Go over the specifics with me later?”

    “Of course. You call me if you need anything, right?”

Phil nods and lets himself through the curtain that obscures Chris’ bed. Normally he would’ve gotten a private room, but he’s critical enough to be in the common area.

He looks a bit better than through video, but still far from the charismatic and energetic person he usually is.

He stirs a bit as Phil sits down on the side of the bed. Phil touches a hand to Chris’ cheek and lets himself feel the life in Chris. His vitals are looking relatively good, he’s a bit warm to the touch but not feverish, the pulse behind his jaw is strong. He’s alive.

And he’s waking up.

    “Phil.”

    “Hello Christopher,” he whispers, grinning wildly. Chris is alive.

And he’s stiffening against Phil’s touch, trying to get away, eyes wide in utter panic. Phil’s a doctor, he knows a panic attack when he sees one, but somehow it’s not quite registering with him that that’s what’s happening to Chris, even though all kinds of devices are screaming their protest at Chris’ vitals, and then McCoy is there, not-so-gently knocking Phil away and busying himself with his patient while Phil stands back, feeling like something small in his chest has just been crushed.

McCoy knocks Chris out and fixes his eyes on Phil.

    “We need to talk,” he says.

 

He fills Phil in on what’s happened in his office, not omitting a single gruesome detail of what Chris went through. They’re both doctors, Phil being Leo’s CO, considering how his assignment to the  _ Enterprise  _ isn’t final yet, and Phil is Chris’ next of kin, so realistically there’s nothing Leo is allowed to leave out.

They go over the specifics of the other injured, and when Chris’ biobed signals he’s waking up again, Leo goes alone and there’s a part of Phil that wants to cry. Of course it’s better that Leo goes alone, considering Chris’ earlier reaction to Phil, and it’s the not being able to help that hurts the most.

 

Leo looks - well, sheepish is the wrong word, depressed, maybe, as he comes back, like he has no idea how to say what he has to say.

    “Don’t sugarcoat it,” Phil says. Leo has been through enough himself.

Leo synthesizes drinks for the both of them.

    “He’s asked me to not let you see him.”

Phil’s drink is halfway down his throat when the words register, and he chokes.

    “What?!”

Leo grits his teeth against the burn of alcohol. “From what I got from him … whatever you said to him is what Nero would say when he came back to grill him some more.”

 

So Phil leaves him alone. Doesn’t visit, not even when Chris is asleep, while the  _ Enterprise  _ is making her way back to Earth. He doesn’t really have anything to do apart from helping out in the ‘bay on occasion - he isn’t command staff, he doesn’t have any orders to give the ship and her captain, and he might have pushed Chris away so far that he’ll never come back.

Leo keeps him updated on Chris’ progress, which isn’t much, but he manages to stay awake for longer periods of time and his pain levels are slowly going down.

On Earth, they put Chris in a private room, with McCoy as his on-call physician, and Phil goes back to working regular hours, wading through the fallout of the destruction of a whole planet and almost all of Earth’s fleet.

Chris is getting physical therapy, as far as he hears, and he’s doing surprisingly good, but he’s not going to get the  _ Enterprise  _ back - shiny new ship with a photogenic crew, young, fierce, brilliant, and with most of them not even graduated yet, including her captain. She’ll wait, needs to be repaired anyways, but after that she’ll go out on a shaking hands cruise, being shown off around the galaxy.

A patient of Phil’s ends up on the same floor as Chris, just a few doors down, and he passes that door almost every day. There’s a security guard posted there, in addition to the clearance field, another physical barrier between him and his lover.

It feels a bit like Chris has died, their apartment empty and everything that’s his unused - his favorite coffee mug, his toothbrush, his guitar, the door to his study perpetually half open because Phil can’t bear to go near it. Their bed is probably the worst, the smell of Chris fading more and more until Phil changes the sheets, and then it’s gone completely. He catches himself almost making coffee for two far too often, buying twice the amount of food as he needs, almost greeting someone who’s not there when he comes back.

 

His patient on Chris’ floor is making good progress, and Phil’s almost looking forward to seeing her every day, until her fiancée asks: “Is there someone important in the room with the security guard?”

Phil is caught off guard and needs a moment to compose himself. “Matter of fact, yes. Highranking ‘fleet officer.” It’s probably more than he should’ve said, but now it’s too late.

He’s intercepted by Leo just as the other man is coming out of Chris’ room, and Phil just about manages to check himself before trying to cast a look inside. 

    “He wants to see you,” Leo says. Phil stares at him.

    “Do I need to repeat myself? He’s asked to see you.”

Phil’s heart is beating in his throat. “Can I -” He motions for the door.

    “Yeah, yeah, in you go. I’ll clear you for visiting.”

 

Chris looks - god, Chris looks so much better than the last time Phil saw him, a lot less pale, hair in order and generally more alive.

He looks up from his PADD as Phil enters, and there’s no emotion on his face for a second, and Phil is so scared, so scared to lose the one man he loves more than life itself, just because he said the wrong thing, and then Chris smiles, a real, genuine smile, and Phil crosses the room at light speed, almost physically falling on top of Chris before stopping himself only centimeters before the edge of the bed.

    “Hey,” Chris says, pushing himself up and stretching an arm out towards Phil, and Phil can’t help but taking that hand, letting himself be drawn in.

Chris’ fingers curl at the nape of Phil’s neck and they kiss before Phil can even think of anything else, soft, warm and slow, making butterflies explode in Phil’s stomach. And also reminding him far too much of seeing him on the ship, and what if he does something wrong again, he can’t lose Chris -

Phil pulls away but keeps holding Chris’ face. “I’m sorry, are you sure you -”

    “ _ God _ , yes.” Chris’ voice cracks and he pulls Phil in again, kissing him again like there’s nothing he’d rather do.

They exchange kisses for a while longer until Chris’ strength seems to leave him and he falls back against the pillows. But he’s smiling and he’s not letting go of Phil’s hand.

    “I’m sorry,” is the first thing he says. Phil wants to open his mouth to protest, but Chris silences him with a single look. “I’m sorry I kept you away for so long. I’m sorry I reacted the way I did on the  _ Enterprise _ . I’m sorry we had that fight before you went to London.”

Phil shakes his head and smiles. His heart has never felt so light before, he thinks. “I love you.”

Chris barks out a laugh. “I love you too, baby, but that doesn’t change the past few weeks.”

Phil lets his head fall against Chris’ shoulder and smiles. They’ll have to talk, but in due time. For now, he’ll revel in Chris’ company.

**Author's Note:**

> ....mmmm remember how i said i'd let phil get kissed next time? yeah. yeah. sorry 'bout that :D i'm working on him being on the receiving end eventually  
>  anyways, thank you for reading!!


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